1. Field of the Invention
The invention is directed to thermoelectric semiconductors in sintered form.
2. Description of the Related Art
Thermoelectric semiconductors in sintered form (referred to as sintered thermoelectric semiconductors hereinafter) are conventionally produced by a process which consists of preparing an alloy of thermoelectric semiconductor in bulk crystal form by the known crystal growth method, pulverizing it with a mill, classifying the resulting crystal powder and sintering the powder of desired particle size by hot pressing or hot extrusion. This conventional process needs as many as four steps, which leads to the disadvantage of requiring heavy investment and large space, resulting in poor productivity. In addition, the pulverizing step and its ensuing classifying step involve the cumbersome handling of powder.